A recent image forming apparatus is capable of reading data from a rewritable recording medium, such as a secure digital (SD) card, hard disk device, electrically erasable programmable read only memory (EEPROM), erasable programmable read only memory (EPROM), and nonvolatile random access memory (NVRAM). For example, the recording medium may store firmware or configuration information such as the option settings. When the power is turned on or when a user instruction is input, the image forming apparatus may read the firmware or the configuration information from the recording medium, and updates the firmware or the configuration of the image forming apparatus to cause the image forming apparatus to perform operation according to the firmware being read from the recording medium or the configuration information being read from the recording medium.
When updating the firmware or the configuration, a problem may arise, for example, due to a conflict between the current firmware or configuration and the firmware or configuration to be updated. The Japanese Patent Application Publication Nos. 2004-318871 and 2004-165734 each describe an image forming apparatus capable of facilitating smooth updating operation even when the trouble is detected. However, the image forming apparatus being described is not capable of detecting the possibility of the conflict before the trouble is detected such that the apparatus it not able to prevent the occurrence of the trouble.
Further, even when the firmware or the configuration of the image forming apparatus is successfully updated, there is no guarantee that the image forming apparatus is free from any trouble. After activation, some functions of the image forming apparatus may become inactivated.
In another example, the firmware or the configuration of the image forming apparatus may be updated by an unauthorized user with the intent of illegally obtaining confidential information stored in the image forming apparatus, such as user information.